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What Small Businesses Get From the Cloud

Has cloud computing made running a business much easier? Find out in Betanews as small business owner, Ed Oswald shares his personal story on how he uses cloud computing on his day-to-day operations.

As a company of one, he expressed the challenges of playing multiple roles such as CEO, CFO and IT administrator. The use of cloud-based solutions has significantly helped him in running his business and he has provided a short list of benefits that he experienced from this technology:

  • Reduced technology expenses
  • Data accessibility
  • Scalable IT needs
  • Easy management
  • Platform independence

These are just the highlights of what cloud computing has given him. Visit Betanews to read the full article and see the rationale behind these benefits.

 

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Friday Cloud News Roundup

Increased Spending on Cloud Apps

In a recent IDG Enterprise survey that included 554 IT professionals including 357 IT heads, 60% of US companies have at least 1 cloud application, this was reported in an article in IT World.

Further, more than 70% of these companies intend to spend more on cloud services in the next twelve months.

The top reasons for increased spending include:

  • Business continuity
  • Speed of deployment
  • Flexibility to react to market conditions
  • Greater data consistency and integration
  • Improved customer support

Read the full article to see more statistics for the survey, visit IT World now.

SMB’s, Strong Adopters of Cloud

An article in CRN talks about a December 2011 survey conducted by Edge Strategies to over 3,000 SMB’s in 13 countries.

It showed that almost 80% of the respondents are either currently using paid cloud services or are already planning to subscribe in the next 2-3 years.

Aside from ccost savings, these companies expect the cloud to make their operations more productive, flexible, innovative and responsive.

In the survey, these are the top 4 services uses of the cloud:

  • Cloud-based e-mail
  • Voice communications
  • Instant messaging
  • Online backup and database services

From these statistics, it is seen that SMB’s are the drivers of cloud computing growth in the next 3 years.

Visit CRN.com to read the full article and check out the statistics of the survey.

CloudTP Event Participations

Two cloud events will be attended by key people of Cloud Technology Partners (CloudTP).

On April 18, founder and CEO Chris Greendale will take part in a panel discussion in the MIT Enterprise Forum in New York entitled, “Cloud Computing: The Next Generation”.

Joining him in the panel are representatives from Agile Equity, Xerox, Gage Networks and more.

Topics for discussion include:

  • Current state and future of cloud computing from an IT and business perspective
  • Hot cloud companies
  • Where lucrative opportunities exist

Also, VP John Treadway will be participating in the panel discussion of the Enterprise Cloud Summit entitled, “Is Open Stack the Answer to the Walled Garden?” on May 6-10 in Las Vegas.

Topics to be discussed will include Openstack’s rapid growth, production and hype and also, the question, “How open is too open?” will be addressed.

Visit the Sacramento Bee to view the full details of these events.

Air Force Moves to the Cloud

Government agencies are indeed following the “Cloud First” policy. In a recent release in Nextgov, it was announced that the Air Force is considering commercial cloud computing services for 1 million of its unclassified networks.

The agency will soon be shifting from desktop computers to thin clients to save on operations and maintenance costs.

The most important factor that they will be looking at is of course, security that includes:

  • User authentication
  • Robust connectivity

Visit Nextgov to read the full article.

Cloud Services for Managing Big Data

Before, there was no cloud service provider that is focused on providing services to projects that must work with big data – until now.

In a release in Virtual Strategy Magazine, the not-for-profit organization, Open Cloud Consortium announced the release of the first ever integrated set of cloud services that manage big data – Tukey.

These providers, also referred to as Science Cloud Service Providers (SciCSPs) are focused on meeting the needs of the research community and supports:

  • Long term archiving of data
  • Parallel processing
  • High end computing

Several research projects are already utilizing the beta version. According to the Director of International Center for Advanced Internet Research Joe Mambretti, “Tukey enables scientists to share their big data sets with researchers around the country and the world”.

Visit Virtual Strategy Magazine to read the article and see the full set of services that Tukey provides.

Lower Cost on Long-Term Cloud

Writer Roger Strukhoff discusses a survey conducted by IDG Enterprise in his Sys-con article.

According to the survey, more than half of security executives believe that there will be long-term cost savings with cloud computing.

Though there are still some concerns regarding the implementation of cloud, majority will still increase their cloud spending within the year and intend to perform most of their IT operations in the cloud.

According to Strukhoff, the results simply show that cloud computing is no longer the new kid on the block, but rather, something that is being taken seriously by enterprise IT.

Visit Sys-con to read the full article and to also check out the details in the upcoming Cloud Expo in New York this June.

Summit for Open Source Cloud Computing

The Ubuntu Cloud Summit is a one-day event for both technology and business attendees interested in how open source cloud computing can help their organizations.

Topics of the summit will include:

  • The Open Cloud
  • Lessons from cloud deployments
  • Open source cloud technologies

The event will be held on May 8 in Oakland, California. Visit the Ubuntu Cloud Portal to view more details of the event.

 

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Cloud Technology Brings Distance Learning to Mainstream

A recent release in PRWeb expressed that distance education at the college and university levels will become the new norm in 2012.

The Distance Learning College Guide is a site that provides online resources to explore various online degree programs such as:

  • Education
  • Healthcare
  • Business
  • Liberal Arts
  • Technology

The 2011 Horizon Report validates that the evolution of cloud computing and technology have taken this type of education to mainstream.

The academic sector once again opens up a wide range of possibilities for students who want to pursue their degrees but cannot afford the luxury of physically going to school or studying full time.

Read the full article in PRWeb and see how cloud technology has helped in the growth and evolution of the educational industry.

 

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Cloud-Based Data Storage Services Gaining Popularity

Several backup providers such as Gladinet, Basho and Softlayer have already launched cloud storage platforms.

Analyst Justin Lee writes in THEWHIR about a recent survey conducted by Symform, which reveals that nearly 40% out of almost 600 respondents from various industries currently use a cloud-based solution for either primary or secondary backup.

Further opportunity is seen when most of these companies are expecting a 10-40% growth in their data volumes, hence the need for a cloud-based backup service to leverage the agility and ease of management.

The scope of the survey included:

  • Current data volumes
  • Data growth expected
  • Current data backup practices
  • Challenges surrounding data backup

Visit THEWHIR to read the full article and see why the firm has concluded that more companies are turning to the cloud for storage and backup. Also, read about the various challenges on data backup considering that some companies are still using traditional services.

 

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Successful Cloud Adoption Tips

Cloud expert, Andi Mann shares his tips for a successful cloud computing adoption through an article in Sys-Con.

He mentioned that these tips were based on the intersection of cloud computing with various huge points of concern such as business strategy, globalization, security and the “new normal”.

Here are some groundwork details that were used as bases for the successful cloud adoption tips:

  • Cloud uses time, money and resource far more efficiently than legacy IT
  • Cloud makes it possible to pursue a vast range of revenue-generating activities
  • CIO’s need to invest for mobility, agility and flexibility more than for simple cost reduction
  • Cloud still takes work to deliver business outcomes
  • A “one-cloud” policy will never be realistic
  • You still need to maintain accountability for full user experience

These are just some parts of the wisdom behind the pointer given, if you would like to read the full version, visit Sys-Con now.

Notably, the author mentioned that cloud offers a fresh start to overcome a lot of IT problems, but it does not mean that the things we already know have become irrelevant, disciplines such as financial and asset management and security and compliance still need to be applied.

 

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